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Aviation History
1962
1962 - 0108.PDF
108 FLIGHT International 18 January 19(2 INDUSTRY International Flight Systems Products Company News Flight Systems Helicopter Flight System Bell Helicopter Company has now delivered to the US Army Signal Corps Electronics Proving Ground at Fort Huachuca the helicopter flight system they and the Army have been testing during the past year. Called the Micro-wave RAILS Integrated Flight Sys tem, the equipment was produced as an interim project pending development of the full Army Navy Instrumentation Program controls. It is fitted in an H-34 and employs two cathode-ray tube displays fed by a small computer giving the pilot attitude and director signals on one scope and a situation display with navigation directors on the other scope. Inputs from dynamic and aerodynamic sensors and from any existing or planned navigation aid. more than 15 factors in all, are fed into the computer to give the pilot continuous guidance by which he can take off. fly a route and land accurately at a selected point, and along a selected glide-path angle, all without being able to see outside the cockpit. The landing guidance device is the Micro-wave Remote Area Instrument Landing System (RAILS) using a Bell- designed portable beacon on the ground and a special lock-on radar fitted in the heli copter. The RAILS beacon is battery-operated and about the size of a desk-top typewriter. The attitude director, left, and the horizontal director, right, of the Bell integrated fight system. Roth are cathode-ray tubes A, pitch attitude trim: B. cathode-ray tube; C, moving attitude symbol; D, lateral groundspeed dots; E, absolute altitude; F, forward groundspeed dots; G, low altitude warning indicator; H, roll attitude trim; J, flight path circle (desired flight path in vertical plane); K, flight dot, lateral for heading reference and vertical for rate of climb; L, c.r.t. brightness control; M, attitude display switch, moving attitude symbol to nav display in place of beacon line; N, flight cyclic director lines: O, height error circle; P, beacon distance scale light; Q, heading index: R, heading ring; S, beacon reference line; T, beacon position; U, height reference circle; V, c.r.t. brightness control Bell Helicopters' Microwave RAILS components include an aerial dome, mounted on the nose of a Sikorsky H-34 helicopter, and the very small, portable RAILS beacon in the foreground It operates in a responder mode and will switch itself off when interrogations stop, so that it can be placed in the field and will operate unattended for a period of davs. Chains of RAILS could be laid down to provide a beacon-marked route to be followed by the helicopter pilot. The air borne aerial rotates at 150 r.p.m. in the search mode, makes one final revolution after receiving the first reply and then locks- on to the beacon. Bearing, range and elevation angle are then computed and fed into the instrument system so that the pilot can chose a descent path and make a landing entirely blind within 25ft of the RAILS. On a control panel he can select navaid coupling or up to ten different RAILS beacons, speed, glide-slope angle and course and the height and required offset for landing away from a RAILS beacon. The attitude director shows a moving aii craft symbol (outside-in display) with a steering dot and flight-path ring against fixed cross-line references. Height off the ground, sensed by radar altimeter or other Instrument panel of the H-34 test helicopter, with symbols illuminated on the two cent'at c.r.t.s. The Bendix vertical tape instrument is on the right and an overall control panel end Doppler computer on the left
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